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Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Long Distance

Fact: it is 3:33 a.m.

Fact: knowing
that the Internet is a living creature and not something from Outside
the universe makes me trust it even less.
Fact: I don’t trust
cell phones for many reasons; their internet connection is only part
of that.

My cell phone is ringing, though I
never turn it on. I’m used to that: anyone who truly needs to reach
a wandering magician will get through to me, and Jay tends to call me
regardless of whether I actually have a phone or not. Having a phone
ring inside your head and then an eleven year old kid who isn’t
human happily telling you about his day means I tend to keep it near
me now. This time it reaches a sixth ring without going to the
machine, dialling from a 1-877 number. I stare at the phone, which at
least rings a little softer. I am almost tempted to take it into the
second bedroom of the house that decided to let a magician stay in
it, but siccing Dana on a solicitor would be rather cruel – and not
just because she is a fae.

I pick the phone up on the eighth ring.
“Hello?”

“Oh, hello! This is Carol, calling to
see if you have considered a free trial of –.”

“How did you get this number?”

“Sir, please calm down. May I remind
you that this call may be recorded for quality–.”

“This phone is warded.” I thread
power into my voice. “How did you get this number?”

“I –
I – I need to get my manager,” she whispers.

I
blink, staring down at the phone. It tries to play hold music, then
settles on silence. I have no idea what she was even trying to sell,
or even who she is working for. Magic
answers need as much as desire, and I use the pause and then hold
back a gasp with an effort. Dana is a focus, but only one of many. So
many people in the world, anger at
solicitors a haze of terrible
desire, the rage
so potent
that I acted without thought.

I
close my eyes for a moment, whisper words of focus, and ward myself
against my own magic. It is about as uncomfortable as it sounds, but
it makes some distance, clears my thoughts a little.

“This
is Skip, manager for Hidalgo Holdings Ltd,” a man’s voice says.
“How can I help you?”

“I doubt you can.” I keep my voice
as even as I can. “Even my mother cannot call my phone if I don’t
desire it: what are you selling?”

“We sell subscriptions to various
magazines, free trials that –.”

“What are you selling?” I ask
again, and this time let a little of the magic into my voice.

“I – information. Information about
you. What magazines you want to buy are passed on to our suppliers,
along with your line as an active line with a receptive caller, our
call list bought by other companies from us in a – I’m not
supposed to be telling you this, sir.”

“I imagine not. I would like to speak
to Carol again. Please.”

The please has a power all its own,
which is good because I don’t trust myself to use more of my magic.
Not given what it is saturated with at the moment. “H-hello,” she
says, her voice cracking a little.

“I did not mean to scare you or to
wound.” It is a gift as much as curse to speak truths that cannot
be ignored.

“Well, it happens often enough,”
she says, her laugh weak and fragile.

“Yes. Yes, it does,” I whisper, and
I can feel the anger building in the magic, pressing against me
inside and out. “Mere understanding will not destroy this anger,
Carol. Where would you desire hate, if you could?”

“Lawyers,” she says, and there is
anger in her own voice, and old hurt under it. I don’t get her
story. I can’t do that and hold this anger back, not right now.

I thank her and hang up, putting the
phone back. “Not all lawyers are terrible, as not all politicians
are monsters,” I say quietly to what waits in the world around me.
“But there are monsters worthy of your fear, monsters that deserve
the kind of rage that could tear worlds apart. In time, I will need
this anger. For now, I would like to place it somewhere where it can
do no harm at all. For your sakes as much as my own.”

I gather the anger with my magic, pull
all the hate inside. I’m not enough to hold it all without being
consumed; I am not sure even the fae are. So I close my eyes and
place it the only place I can think of, and far away Jay stirs
slightly and goes back to sleep, unaware of what I have placed inside
him for future need.

I left him and Charlie with a promise
not to use him, and I am already breaking it. Knowing he will forgive
me does not make it better at all. I close my eyes, fall back asleep,
and welcome the ugly dreams that will result from my failure.

A collection of miscellany

Condoms will break, but I can assure you that vows of abstinence will break more easily than condoms.

- Dr. Joycelyn Elders

In fantasy, impossible things exist. In science fiction, impossible things exist and can be understood by humans. In supernatural horror, impossible things exist and cannot live in peace with humans.

- Will Shetterly

We are living in a time when you can believe anything, as long as you do not claim it to be true.

- Ravi Zacharia

Religion teaches the dangerous nonsense that death is not the end.

- Richard Dawkins

In the time of harmony the golden age is not in the past, it is in the future

- Paul Signac

"No" is the wildest word in the English language.

- Emily Dickinson

The middle ground between genuinely true and outright faking is unconscious delusion.

- Dean Radin

“You have to surrender to your mediocrity, and just write. Because it’s hard, really hard, to write even a crappy book. But it’s better to write a book that kind of sucks rather than no book at all, as you wait around to magically become Faulkner. No one is going to write your book for you and you can’t write anybody’s book but your own.”